much converfe with others, if he was not edified himself, or though he did not edifie others; how circumfpect and tender was the ftrain of his walk in this? He oft regretted the difficulty there was to retain integrity in the most part of company in this degenerate age; he reckoned fuch company a great hardship, and loth would he be to have let any thing offenfive in converse go without a check.

The following memoirs will witnefs his walking with God in his family and closet: But fome things here I cannot pafs; it was his ordinary, except he had been neceffarily hindred, to come from his closet to family worship, efpecially if the Lord had given him enlargment of heart, and if his spirit was in a due frame; he would then have been very uneafie, if any interruptions fell in betwixt closet and family-duties. He alfo commonly expounded the word of God, at leaft once a day in his family. The night before family-fafts, which he kept, our national-fafts, he always directed his fervants how to manage that work, and on the faft-days themselves difcourfed them about their fouls condition and concerns.

He was an affectionate and dutiful husband, a confcientious and kind parent, a faithful and eafy mafter.

Such as knew him, will own, he had a clear head, a very ready and rare invention, and an uncommon memory; he read little after his health broke, and oft owned his greatest improvement was more by thinking than reading.

He had a very ready way of expreffing his thoughts; he was far from a vain, airy affectation of language in preaching, (a prevailing evil in this time) he had - ftudied an even, neat and fcriptural ftile, and this be came natural, tho' fome thought in the end, his deep thinking made it a little more abftrufe than formerly to a popular auditory.

He had choice pulpit gifts, he was an accurate and pathetic preacher a great textuary, clofe in hand

ling any truth he difcourfed, and in the application, he was home, warm and fearching; and in this he fhewed himself ufually a skilful cafuift. He oft complained, that fome worthy men were too general and bare in the application of their doctrines,

He ordinarily wrote his fermons very exactly, when health and bufinefs would allow; he used to say A lazy minister in his younger years, would make a poor old man. it were to be wifhed, that this example were more followed than it is. He oft adventured to preach under great indifpofition, when he was not able to write fo much as the heads of his fermon, yea, even at facraments, and he has been fingularly affifted, to the conviction of all that heard him. In his last two years he wrote little, his health then was fo low.

His experience of the power of godliness, with his other gifts mentioned, made him very skilful to deal with wounded fpirits, according to the variety of their cafes; and this converfe he owned was extreamly ufeful to himself. Few minifters have taken a more cautious and confirming way of dealing with people, than he did before he admitted them to the facrament; and while in health, he was diligent in the other parts of his minifterial work.

He was no lefs fingularly fitted for the fchools; he fpoke elegant latin promptly, tho' he had been long in the difufe of it, and was fcarce at any pains to recover it, which was much admired: He was very expert in the greek, but his fickness broke his defign to accomplish himself in the rest of the oriental languages.

In controverfies, efpecially thofe of the time, he excelled many, it was ftrange to fee how quickly he would have taken up the ftate of controverfie, the ftrength of an adverfary, feen through their deceitfull fophiftry and pretences, and how clofe and ner vous his reasoning was ufually.

Now on the whole, what a lofs, especially in

7

this juncture, may we justly reckon the death of this great little man to the poor wrestling church of Scotland, to the place he lived in, and to his family? Alas! What fhall we fay? What great thoughts of heart may it caufe, when fuch a green olive-tree, fair, and of goodly fruit is cut down, when fuch bright ftars fet, yea, even conftellations of them in our day? May we not juftly, fear, when fuch wrestlers with God are taken off, as he on his death bed comments on fuch damping providences, that the confumption decreed fhall overflow in righte cufnels? Ifa. x. 22.

MEMOIRS

OF THE

LIF

I FE

OF

Mr, THOMAS HALY BURTON,

T

WRITTEN

By himself fome years before his death.

INTRODUCTION.

HE common occurances of the life of one in all refpects fo inconfiderable, are not worth recording; and if recorded, could be of little ufe either to myself, or others, Wherefor it is none of my design to waste time or paper with these. But if I can recount the Lord's gracious conduct toward me, the state of matters before and under the Lord's fpecial dealings with me, in a way of conviction, illumin tion, converfion, confolation and edification; and compact them fo, as to discover, not only the parts of this work, the feveral advances it made, the oppofition made to it, its victory over the oppofition of my own heart, Satan and the world: but alfo to prefent the work in its order and iffue, it may be of great ufe to my own eftablishment, and if ever it thould fall in the hands of any other Chriftian, it might be not unufeful, confidering, that the work of the Lord in all is, as to the fubftance, the fame and

uniform

uniform; and as face answers to face Prov. xxvvii. 19. in a glafs, fo does one Chriftian's experience anfwer another's and both to the word.

This being the design of this narrative, to give fome account of the Lord's work with me, and my way with him, in fo far as I remember it from my birth this day, I fhall proceed to it.

PART. I.

Narrating the fate of matters with me from the time of my birth till I was about ten years of age, or thereby,

I

Came into the world, not only under the guilt of that offence, whereby many, nay all were made finners, Rom. v. 19. and on the account whereof judgment puffed upon all men to condemnation : But moreover I brought with me a nature wholly corrupted, Job. xiv. 4. Pfalm. li. 5. a heart wholly fet in me to do evil. Eccl. ix. 3. This the teftimony of God in the word fatisfies me of. And herein I am ftrongly confirmed by undoubted experience, that fully convinceth me, that from the morning of my days, while under the advantage of gofpel-light, the infpection of godly parents, and not yet corrupted by cuftom, the imaginations of my heart, and the tenor of my life, were evil, only evil and continually Jo. Gen. vi. 5, 8, 21.

2. It cannot be expected, that at fo great a diftance, I fhould remember the particulars of that first three or four years of my life: Yet I may on the jufteft grounds prefume, that they were filled up with thofe fins that cleave to children in their infancy, Many of which are not only evil, as they flow from a poifoned root; Matth. vii. 17. for an evil tree will bring forth corrupt fruit: But do alfo bear the im

prefs